


Some Great Reward

by Kiyaar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Bondage, Breathplay, Comeplay, D/s, Established Relationship, Face-Fucking, Humiliation, M/M, Masochism, Orgasm Delay/Denial, PWP, Pining, Porn, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Rough Oral Sex, Silver Fox Tony, Snowballing, moderate angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 14:15:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13237440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/pseuds/Kiyaar
Summary: After the events of Captain America: Civil War, Tony and Steve come to an agreement. It doesn't involve affection.





	Some Great Reward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoldenaTS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenaTS/gifts).



> Written for goldenazk, my secret santa giftee! I hope you enjoy something in here. :)

Steve suckles on a silicone gag shaped like a cockhead and stretches his wrists as much as he can in his cuffs and feels a trickle of drool running out the side of his mouth. He bites at it, traces the indents with his tongue.

Tony’s been on the phone with Ross for an hour. He paces. He twists his watch, he drags his feet. Occasionally he breaks his circuit to wander over to where Steve has been arranged so he can slip the pad of his thumb into Steve’s mouth.

“We’ve been over this, Secretary,” Tony is saying, and Steve never knows how to read his tone anymore. He’s all irritation and smokescreens. He pulls at his tie. He perches on the edge of the coffee table and doesn’t look at Steve and slides his fingers through Steve’s hair just until they catch, just until he has enough to pull.

This office is where Tony entertains his peers: wealthy investors, journalists that want to interview him about his humanitarian work. Lobbyists. Members of Congress who would like to see Steve extradited and hung for treason.

Tony has positioned him, kneeling, on the rug with his knees and ankles spread wide, his hands caught at the small of his back. Tony’s added a wide leather collar today, hooked his head back with a lead that connects to the spreader bar keeping his ankles apart. It is his least favorite configuration to date. He can’t pull his head forward, can’t close his legs. He is open and sore and may as well be carved out of stone for all the attention Tony has given him.

They do it like this because Tony won’t have Steve on top of him, anymore.

“You know, it’s almost like you don’t trust me, Secretary,” Tony says into the phone.

 _Warmer than prison_ . It echoes through him _._

Wakandan nights are cold without Tony curled around him, buried in his body.

“Thank you, sir,” Tony says, and throws his phone on the ground.

It’s not a good day. He’s agitated. He’s holding himself like he used to do when he still had the reactor and he was stiff, like he wanted to be punching his issues out but breathing was the most he could hope to settle for. He moves out of Steve’s periphery, but Steve hears him settle by the window. The plug Steve’s almost forgotten about buzzes to life. On, off, on. Tony is playing with him. He cycles through the settings, Steve squirms and flushes and flexes his thighs to get anything he can out of it.

“Do you have any idea how much shit I’m taking for you right now,” he says, curt, somewhere behind Steve. Clinking, glasses. Liquor sloshing into a glass. Tony steps into his field of vision without his jacket, rips his glasses off, tosses them carelessly on the coffee table. "You cost me money, you cost me time."

Tony likes to do this, now. Make him wait. Monologue. Tony makes the speeches, Tony deals out the hurt.

“I am completely uninterested in romancing you,” Tony says, as if it’s any kind of deterrent.  

Steve blinks once, slow and deliberate: assent, agreement.

Tony downs his entire glass, sticks his hands in his pocket. Regards him.

“But you don’t actually want me to romance you, do you,” he says, extends one leather shoe to toe at Steve’s balls. “You want to be my filthy little secret. You want me to pull your hair and tell you you look like something I could sell to Playgirl.”

Steve hears some kind of noise coming from his own throat. His cheeks feel hot. Tony is looking at his chest, smirking. It isn’t kind.

Tony rolls his sleeves up, picks at the buckle on his watch. Steps up to Steve, finds the clasp for the gag. Looks Steve in the eye, pulls out the gag inch by inch; Steve can feel it sliding out of his throat. He chokes, and Tony smiles. Tony lets it dangle around his neck.

Tony slides to his knees and settles himself in Steve’s lap, half sitting, half straddling him.

Steve gasps. Tony puts his hands on Steve’s ass, just to feel the shape of him, and Steve feels his cock jerk, he feels the silk of Tony’s vest against his bare, too-sensitive skin. He moans, lets his eyes fall closed. Lets Tony fondle him, watches the lines of Tony’s throat when Tony presses his crotch into Steve’s. He’s hard, under that nice expensive suit. Steve wonders if he’s going to keep it on. If he’s going to tip him onto his face and bend over Steve’s body and fuck him from behind like that with his vest rubbing into Steve’s back –

Steve strains to kiss him and Tony pinches the swell of Steve’s ass.

“No,” Tony says absently, turns his head away. His breath hitches.

Something cold and empty festers in Steve’s chest.

“This is not up to you,” Tony tells him.

“Tony–” Steve starts.

“I don't wanna hear you speak,” Tony says cruelly.

He unzips his pants, reaches into his underwear – black, unremarkable, wet-smelling – and pulls himself out. He is hard. Steve realizes he’s been hard, it was in his walk, imagines him on the phone with Thunderbolt Ross and his cock tucked away in Steve’s mouth, imagines them talking about him, they want to put him in prison, they want to lock him up, they want to make him disappear, Tony’s the only one who knows he’s here, Tony could do anything to him –

Tony slaps him and his eyes snap open. Steve’s slipping.

“Come on, Steve,” Tony cautions, “Be here, or don’t show up.”

Tony slides his cock against Steve’s face. Tony’s well-groomed, and his pubes scratch at Steve’s cheek. It leaves Steve with a pleasant stinging burn; affection laced with pain just feels like pleasure, now. Tony is loosening: his stance widens, he relaxes his muscles like he’s finished a particularly satisfying round of stretches. Steve keeps his mouth open, ready, tries not to be needy about it. He fails; he’s transparent, he’s panting and he’s drooling down his chin and Tony just runs the head of his cock all around Steve’s lips, lets Steve smell how wet he is, lets Steve suffer.

Tony teases himself like that for a time, holds himself loosely in one hand, and then, _finally_ , catches the rim of his cockhead on Steve’s lips. Bends to kiss him when Steve’s lips become sticky, makes it wet and filthy, and then it’s his cock nudging at Steve’s lips again. Steve dares to lap at him, just once, and Tony takes it away, leaves him flushing and wanting and hot.

Tony unbuttons his vest, drapes it over the couch. He slips out of his pants, so tense, so elegant, such anger in his muscles, such deliberacy. Steve knows what that is, recognizes it easily. Tony is at war.

He looks okay. The see each other so rarely now, Steve sees Tony’s _body_ so rarely. His scar looks pinker than usual, today, he’s got bruises all up the side of his ribs where he must have been throwing himself around in the suit. He’s lost weight, he’s not coloring his hair. He’s not coloring his beard. His pubes are limned in silver, too. The joke is always the same, thrown carelessly at Steve – nonagenarian, senior citizen, grandpa – but Tony has lived three decades longer than Steve. He has a way of making Steve wonder if he’s drawn to titans because his whole life has been constructed for him.

Tony makes the world seem simple. Like he always has it firmly in hand.

Tony stands in front of him and nudges at Steve’s heavy cock with one bare toe.

Steve jerks forward and almost topples face-first onto the rug.

Tony laughs; it’s not kind. He bends, kneels, takes Steve in hand. Steve is leaking; he can smell his own arousal, can smell Tony’s, can feel his balls brushing the carpet. Tony rolls them in his hand, feels out the shape of each one with his fingers. Rests them in his palm like he’s gauging Steve’s enthusiasm.

“I don’t think you’re desperate enough,” Tony whispers in his ear.

Steve feels so swollen, so sore, that he thinks he’s going to die if Tony doesn’t give him some place to put his cock.

“You’re not the best at reading people,” Steve says.

It’s bait, they both know it. Tony’s expression doesn’t change and some barely-perceptible measure of disappointment runs through Steve when Tony doesn’t rise to it.

Tony leans in, kisses him gently on the cheek. Runs his fingers around Steve’s neck, checks the collar.

“I do okay,” Tony whispers, and then Steve feels him tighten the collar by one torturous notch.

Tony watches his face like Steve is a puzzle he could assemble in his sleep. It is torturously, deliriously good. It’s just the wrong edge of painful, it takes all of his focus to beat back his panic: he isn’t actually dying, the serum can take more than that.

Tony pulls at the strap, and Steve’s vision goes white.

Tony holds him up, cradles the back of his neck, rubs his thumb insistently against the underside of Steve’s cock. Looks at him all the way through. Steve feels lightheaded and erased, can’t imagine what his cock looks like, how obscene it must look. His pulse throbs in his neck, in his forehead. He feels his own cock jerk in Tony’s hand bump against his own stomach.

Tony lets the collar out, and Steve gasps for air, tips his head into Tony’s bare shoulder. Tony runs his fingers through his hair.

“Do that again,” Steve gasps.

“Your manners suck.”

“Please do that again,” Steve says, breathless, thirsty, obsessed –

“No,” Tony says, and tucks the buckle back into its place. “But I do enjoy it when you beg.”

He’s not lying; Tony is hard. The head of his cock is flushing a deep purple-pink. The late afternoon light casts him in golds and pinks – the bronze of his tan skin, the flush creeping up his chest.  

He slides around behind steve, presses his hands to the flat of Steve’s chest. Tony is not in a generous mood tonight; he gives only what he has to – a single caress to Steve’s right nipple, the suggestion of playing with Steve’s painfully hard cock, one feather-light kiss to Steve’s shoulder blade. Steve would like to think it’s preoccupation but nothing is uncalculated, anymore, between them.

“Tony,” Steve says. “Tony, I’m so hard, please–”

Tony presses the gag back into Steve’s mouth, lets it rest on his tongue. Pumps it in and out of his mouth, slowly, just the first inch, a tease, an object, an empty milestone for steve to chase. He wants a performance.

“Is this what you’re getting in Wakanda,” Tony is saying. “Do you let Barnes and Sam double-team you like this, Steve, is that why you’re so hard right now?” He presses the thing all the way into Steve’s mouth.

Steve’s eyes roll back behind his closed eyes.

“They won’t do this for you, though, will they,” Tony whispers, his lips grazing Steve’s ear, and Steve’s eyes roll back behind his closed eyes.

He can’t help the moan that comes out of his throat; he doesn’t want to. He nurtures his anger, he keeps the thing in his mouth even when Tony lets go, suckles at it, imagines it’s Tony’s cock, lets Tony touch him everywhere, lets Tony pinch him and bring tears to his eyes and yank on his lead and close his fingers around the base of the plug.

“Nnnnghhh,” Steve says, as Tony pulls it half out of him. The plug is less than nothing, Steve runs through 15 possible outcomes and five of them are Tony fucking him from behind, he wants that, it feels like his whole brain lights up when he thinks about it, that’s what he wants to ask for –

He lets the gag slide out of his mouth, lets it dangle around his neck. “Fuck me,” he says. “I know you want to,” he says, because goading is coded into both of them, because there’s too much pushed down between the two of them to be kind about it. They’re done with seduction.

Tony slides the plug out so the widest part stretches Steve open. He aims up when he thrusts back in. “I am fucking you, Steve,” he says. Steve jerks when it bumps at his prostate, his mouth has fallen open and he’s rolling his hips to meet Tony’s hand, he’s obscene, he is mindless and starving and he’d do anything right now if Tony would just get his cock in him –

“No,” Steve rasps, “fuck me for real _–_ ”

“Is this not good enough for you,” Tony murmurs. “Are you better than the rest of us, Steve, do you require special treatment?”

Clarity is slipping away from him, there’s just warmth and need and urgency. He wants to stop being upright like this, he wishes Tony would just plant a foot in the small of his back and tip him onto the carpet face-first, hump him into the rug, pull the strap on his collar again, he wants all of the noise _gone –_    

“Be explicit. So there are no _misunderstandings_.”   

Steve lets his head tip back and buries his face in Tony’s neck. He presses his eyes shut and moans where Tony is massaging the head of his cock with his thumb. Steve shakes his head, searches for Tony’s neck with his mouth.

Tony pulls away and digs his finger into Steve’s slit and holds Steve through the aborted scream he lets out.

“Tell me,” Tony says.

“Fuck me, come inside me,” Steve says again. “Make it hurt,” he says, imagines a world where he doesn’t have to climb onto a jet after this, a world where Tony locks him under his desk and keeps him full and hurts him every hour on the hour.

“Why should I,” Tony whispers, and his hands are running down Steve’s chest now, smoothing over his skin. Tony is feeling the shape of his muscles from his skin like he secretly wants to be unwrapping them, like he wants to draw Steve into his world of machines and wires and metal and see what makes him go. “Why do you need it from me,” he hisses, and something that’s shame and anger twisted together stirs in Steve.

Steve cracks his eyes open. The shield is gleaming.

“I’m asking nicely,” Steve murmurs.

“If you were asking nicely, you wouldn’t be able to speak, Steve,” Tony snarls.

“Gag me, then, just.” He balls his fist. He’s been kneeling here nursing his anger. He’s ready to bust out of his cuffs and put Tony on his back and take him for a ride himself.

He’s done it before, once. Tony had laughed and let himself be pushed around. He’d loved it.

Steve flexes his shoulders and expects to feel the leather splitting like it’s cotton.

Nothing happens, and Tony chuckles, low in his ear.

“These are,” Steve says weakly, and his cock feels ten times harder. He tries again and it sends a pleasant burn all through his thighs, his shoulders, his arms. There’s nothing he can do. “These are new.”

Tony’s eyes glimmer. “I anticipate your needs,” he says. "I anticipated you might need to be reminded of the situation between us." He tangles his fingers in Steve’s pubes, traces the base of his very-hard cock with deft fingers, fondles him. Takes some of his own wetness and brings it to his mouth, rubs it on his lips. Lets Steve suck it off his fingers.

Tony sets the plug vibrating again and Steve gasps. Too much, too fast. He feels as dizzy as he can feel while fully hydrated, fully oxygenated. Tony could do anything, Tony is all over the place tonight.

Steve is giddy with it. “ _Oh_ ,” he moans. “Please,” he begs in a hoarse whisper. “That was dirty,” he says, breathless. “That wasn’t fair, _ungh, Tony,_ let me, let me, please–”

“I could fight dirtier,” Tony says, and there’s no affection in his voice. “Let you what?”

Something about that is intoxicating. Steve has fallen all the way from revered to less than nothing. All it took was one omission.

Tony strokes a hand through his hair. “Last chance, Captain,” he says, and then it’s violent, then he’s pulling and Steve’s eyes are watering and he feels a fresh welter of precome sliding onto his thighs. “Tell me how you want to _feel_ , Steve.”

He kisses Steve’s neck, rubs himself along Steve’s ass. “Tell me, or I’ll drop you in the jet just like this and all your friends will get to see what a fucking whore you are,” he breathes.

Steve hears himself moaning and can’t string any sort of rebuke together. It’s dishonest.

“I know,” Tony soothes, and slides a hand around Steve’s cock, teasing, loose, not enough for pleasure but just enough for torment. “You wish you could stop,” he whispers, “but here you are, Steve. I wish you could see this. I wish _they_ could see this,” he hisses.

“Fuck me like you don’t care about damaging me,” Steve chokes, and he feels his cheeks burning. "Push me."

He wants to say _hurt me_ but it’s a conversation he doesn’t want to have, a road he doesn’t want to tread, a thrill that exists only in his fantasies, now. They’ve lost things. They’re splintered.

He thinks he doesn’t want to give Tony the opportunity.

Tony kisses the nape of his neck, puts the remote for the vibrator in Steve’s hand, edges Steve’s thumb onto the button. He won’t turn it off, they both know it. Tony puts one broad hand on Steve’s hip and Steve is dimly aware that he’s been thrusting at nothing; he feels sweat running down his back. The plug is too much and not enough, overwhelming sensation, barely enough volume to make him feel like he’s being manipulated for someone else’s leisure.

Tony slips around his body, slips two of his fingers under the collar again, checks his wrists, checks his ankles.

 _No_ , Steve wants to say. Too kind, too careful.

“Maybe you’re not cut out for this,” Steve croaks out. “Maybe I should go.”

“Maybe you should be careful about pushing _me_ , Steve,” Tony says viciously. He stands over Steve, fits one hand over the base of his cock, runs the other over Steve’s lips. Strokes over his forehead, runs his free hand back and rests it at Steve's nape.

Steve waits, entirely still, lets his anticipation coil and dance and thrum underneath his skin. He wants it, he would do anything for it, he would say anything, he would be a terrible spy, it’s been months since they’ve done this and all he wants is the taste of Tony’s skin and Tony has to give it to him, Jesus, he’s whining, he must be beet-red, his balls are covered in his own slick, Tony knows, every time, exactly what to deny him.

“Take a breath,” Tony tells him, and he slides just the tip of his cock onto Steve’s tongue. He tastes like Tony’s cotton/poly underwear, salty. Tony is cut and Steve would spend hours dragging his mouth over the velvety pebbled skin of him if Tony would let him.

“Here’s how I want you feel,” Tony says. “I want you to feel like you don’t matter to anyone.”

Tony snaps his hips forward and holds Steve’s head down.

Steve’s nose is pressed into Tony’s stomach. The urge to pull back is useless; he’s fully bound, he couldn’t break the bonds if he wanted to. He remembers: swallow, keep swallowing, just hold it together until Tony pulls out. He has to pull out.

Tony doesn’t pull out.

“Your throat feels like it was meant for this,” Tony slurs, and stars dance behind Steve’s eyes.

He holds Steve, cradles the back of his neck when he could be holding the lead – he wants this to be personal, wants it to sting. Tony moans, tips his head forward, drips sweat into Steve’s hair. He drags his cock out of Steve’s throat and snaps back in, murmurs incomprehensible things while Steve’s vision fills up with static. Steve can’t grab him, can’t push back, he’s bound and stiff and open, he’s here until Tony wants to be done with him.

Tony pulls out and Steve coughs and chokes and gasps.

Tony looks down at him through half-lidded eyes, hungry and indifferent.

“Do you want to stop,” he says.

“Just fuck my throat, Tony,” Steve rasps.

Tony doesn’t warn him, this time, doesn’t tell him to breathe. Doesn’t care. Puts both of his hands in Steve’s hair. He steps in closer, his ankles pressed against the inside of Steve’s thighs, and Steve can feel him going up on his toes. Tony sighs, moans, pulls his hair harder than he needs to. Steve’s eyes burn with tears, and it’s good, it’s brutal and Tony doesn’t care how he feels. He could be anyone, he’s nothing, he kneels and receives and disappears.

He can feel it, every time Tony punches past his gag reflex, the tickle, the burning sensation when Tony slides down his throat.  Sometimes he stays there, and Steve can feel his distended throat pressing against the collar, it’s so deliriously good, he’s not getting enough oxygen but he wishes he were getting less, he wishes it were Tony’s hands and not the fucking collar –

Tony pulls on the strap and Steve whimpers.

“I miss you when you’re not here,” Tony is saying, and Steve feels Tony’s length drag along his tongue before Tony’s back in his throat again. His vision is collapsing. He doesn’t mind, it’s nice here. Blood roars in his ears.

“What if I suffocated you,” he’s saying. “What if you died like this, I’d have to, _mm_ , I’d have to hide your body or everyone would know about you, everyone would know about us–”

Steve jerks his hips forward and Tony gasps out a laugh.

“No,” he says, and Steve must be dripping on Tony’s foot. “I don’t think so.” He’s not pulling all the way out anymore, just slides out long enough to tickle Steve’s gag reflex then pushes back down. He stays there for seconds and Steve’s ability to care slides further and further out of his reach.

Tony lets the strap go and Steve sucks in air through his nose and tries to blink the colors away. He’s moaning, he wants it again already, he wants Tony to personally wring his neck for eternity –

“You get what I give you, Steve,” Tony tells him, and Tony’s balls slap against Steve’s throat. _Stop talking_ , Steve wants to say, he wants Tony to completely fucking ignore him, he wants to feel like the hole Tony is trying to use him as, he wants to come out of this hollowed out, empty, a vessel.

“Don’t swallow,” Tony pants, and his the tip of his cock is finally resting in Steve’s mouth and Steve wraps his tongue around him and shudders. Tony comes like he hasn’t had an orgasm in weeks, spurt after spurt after spurt. Steve’s mouth fills up but he doesn’t dare disobey. Some of it is leaking out the side of his mouth, it’s too much, it’s exquisite, he feels like a filthy secret and a personal slave and it’s the furthest thing from Captain America he can possibly imagine.

He comes.

It’s completely unsatisfying, he doesn’t even stop being hard, it just trickles down his shaft in a pathetic little rivulet like he’s tipped over the edge for a split-second and then he’s right back at almost-satisfied, almost-there. He wants to cry in frustration – he might be, Tony is running a thumb over his face, Tony is still in his mouth, Tony is feeling his lips where they’re stretched around his cock.

“Don’t waste any,” Tony says, and then he’s sliding out of Steve’s mouth and Steve wants to gasp and cry but he has to keep his mouth shut.

Tony lets out a sigh, wobbles to the ground, rests with his knees bracketing Steve’s. Taps lightly on the head of Steve’s cock because he’s sadistic. Puts his arms around Steve’s neck. Kisses Steve’s shoulder. Kisses his cheek.

“Give it to me,” Tony whispers, his beard brushing against Steve’s ear, and then Tony’s mouth is on Steve’s.

Tony kisses him like he’s not holding a mouthful of semen, like it’s a game, like it’s a test. Steve keeps his mouth shut at first, his head buzzing with _don’t spill don’t spill don’t spill_ and then Tony is twisting one of Steve’s nipples. It’s dirty, it makes Steve shake and gasp and his mouth opens and some of Tony’s come is spilling out of his mouth and Tony _licks it away_ , Tony takes it all, seals their lips together, darts his tongue out like he’s sampling a delicacy straight from Steve’s mouth. Steve thinks he’s moaning, Tony is certainly touching him, now, he’s using his own come and rubbing it under the head of Steve’s cock and Steve bites at his lip and lets the rest of it go, lets himself be a sloppy fucking mess so Tony can see what he’s done.

A click, two, and Tony’s undone the spreader bar. Steve’s lead hangs loose down his back, but he can kick his legs out, he can curl over onto himself. Tony sits back and something is shoved between Steve’s legs, hot, solid –

It’s Tony’s leg.

Steve wants to die.

“Tony, no,” he says, and his mouth tastes like Tony, he’s going to be tasting Tony for the next week. “Just touch me, please touch me, please–”

“Do you want to come properly or not,” Tony says.

“Yes,” Steve whispers, his cheeks heating in shame.

“Rub yourself off on my leg, Steve,” Tony says.

Steve drags his body into position. He inches up Tony’s thigh, bends forward, has to rest his head on Tony’s shoulder to do it, nestles his cock just inside the crease where Tony’s thigh meets his torso. His hands are still bound. He is so hard his cock jumps when he touches Tony’s skin.

He plants his legs as wide as they’ll go, and starts to rock.

He does it. He rests in that heady place of shame and arousal and fear and kneels with his hands still pinned behind him and hump’s Tony’s broad thigh. It’s awful. Tony has plucked the remote off the ground at some point and sets the plug to a useless random setting that doesn’t do anything more than remind Steve that he’s unsatisfied and will remain so until Tony decides otherwise. _It’s not going to work_ , he wants to say, he feels like he’s humping a pillow, Tony’s thigh is sticky and hot and Tony is whispering in his ear, telling him things like _I know what your body can do_ and _I don’t want to touch you, Steve_ and _you’re lucky I’m letting you come at all._

He feels like he’s going to die. In this tiny universe where Tony is god, he is whittled down and his patience is extracted from him thread by thread. He’s whining, he doesn’t care, he’s chanting _please please please please please._ “Shh,” Tony soothes, and he presses a hand over Steve’s eyes. “You don’t have to look,” Tony is whispering. “I know it riles you up. Just chase it, Steve, hump my leg, that’s how you get off, show me how grateful you are–”

Steve shouts when he comes. He’s getting it on the rug, he knows, and Tony slides an arm around his waist and holds him through it, holds them chest to chest. Steve bites him; immediately regrets it, Tony hates marks. It ends after what feels like an eternity, and it’s just the wail of the recycled air filtering through the compound, the silence stretched between the two of them, Steve wilting in Tony’s lap, both of them stuck together with evidence to prove it: they just can’t get away from each other.

Steve tests his luck, presses his lips to Tony’s neck. He tries to be tender. He wants to be.

Tony sighs and stiffens and Steve knows it’s over.

Steve sags on his knees and lets the tears slide out of his eyes. He doesn’t care, it’s just endorphins. It’s just the sex. It doesn’t mean anything. Tony pretends not to see, and so they orbit each other, together, utterly alone.

Tony slowly untangles himself, guides Steve’s body, props him up against the couch. The buzzing stops, and Tony’s fingers find the base of the plug and gently remove it from Steve’s body. He undoes Steve’s straps with clinical efficiency. He breathes evenly, not like he used to, not with the thing lodged in his chest. He runs his hands over Steve like he’s checking a piece of machinery. He must be pleased with what he finds; he doesn’t linger. He ducks into the bathroom and comes back with an armful of white steaming towels.

“Are you okay,” Steve pants.

Tony won’t meet his eyes. “I’m fine,” he says, undoes the buckle on Steve’s collar. “Are you?” He drapes a towel over Steve’s shoulders, like he owes him something.

Steve wishes he would stop.

“I’m fine,” Steve says. He pulls the collar from his neck. He takes a towel, rubs it over his face until his skin feels raw.

Tony’s heartbeat is fast, faster than it should be for a guy his age, even after a round like that.

“Tony, your –” Steve starts. He clears his throat. “Your heart is going fast.”

“You thrill me,” Tony deadpans.

“It’s like 100 BPM,” Steve presses. “Are you okay?”

Tony’s eyes snap up to meet Steve’s. He looks awful, up close, carries dark circles under his eyes. He doesn’t look sated or well-fucked or moderately content. He looks like Steve feels. Like he wants to stop.

“It’s called a pacemaker,” Tony says.

Steve thinks his own heart must skip a beat.

“Tony,” he says. He can’t keep the hurt out of his voice. “When, why didn’t you–”

“Because you’re a criminal, Steve,” Tony says. He sounds tired. He pats at himself with a towel, throws it at Steve. Steps into his pants without putting on new underwear. “What was I supposed to do,” he says dully. “Leave a message?” He tosses a bottle of water at him, and Steve almost fumbles it.

“I sent you a phone,” Steve croaks. “I meant it, Tony–”

“I don’t want to get into this,” Tony says, and tucks his cock back into his pants.

“I deserved to know,” Steve tells him, shaking off the last cuff from his ankle.

“No,” Tony says sharply, and whirls around. “No, you don’t fucking deserve to know. You don’t get to know what’s going on with me anymore. _You_ left.”

It’s not untrue. He thinks about the letter he wrote and thinks about what came before. A band-aid slapped on gaping wound.

Steve thinks maybe he’s reopening it every time he comes here.

Tony taps at his watch. “Jet’s on the tarmac,” he says, like there wasn’t a time they slept in the same bed. “Window closes in 30 minutes.”

“Do you want me to come back,” Steve says.

Tony is shaking out a fresh shirt. He stands facing the window to put it on. “Have your people call my people,” he says. His voice is flat, unreadable. “You know where I live,” he says, quieter.

He grabs Steve’s shield, stashes it back under his desk.

Steve’s throat is raw. He looks at his wrists, looks at the pile of towels. Looks at Tony’s empty glass on the coffee table.

“Did I earn it?” he asks.

Tony throws the cuffs in a drawer, slams it. Sits in his chair. Looks at the flip phone sitting out on his desk.

“No,” Tony says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> • thank you for reading  
> • comments sustain me  
> • here is a [rebloggable tumblr post](http://kiyaar.tumblr.com/post/169206111913/fic-some-great-reward)  
> . Please reblog - it makes such a difference especially with rumble's new trash algorithm.  
> • I am [kiyaar](http://kiyaar.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and everywhere else


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